FINALLY KINDRED SPIRITS

We spent an extra night in Brockport and finished the walking tour of the town. We have some great pictures of the architecture.

We also happened upon a pick-up bluegrass/folk string band - "The Brockport Busters": guitar, banjo, base, mandolin, drum, etc. practicing in a small store front. We went in to hear the music and sang along as they played. They graced us with an extra piece, even though they were done practicing for the day. This is one of the little gems of a small town.

Then late in the afternoon another sail boat came up the river. At first we didn’t know if they were waiting for the lift bridge or looking for a dock. We yelled out to them and it turned out they were looking to dock - but there was no apparent space. There was a small pontoon boat docked astern (behind) us and the occupants were having dinner at the Stoneyard, which has a patio facing the canal. They graciously agreed to move their boat to the west along the wall so that there was room for the sail boat to dock. At last we met another couple going the same direction and with the same goal as us. It was like a breath of fresh air. Karen and Hugh are from Canada near Georgian Bay. Karen and I were so happy to meet each other we couldn’t help but hug. We share many of the same concerns and understood each other immediately.

Karen and Hugh come from Georgian Bay and are used to anchoring when they vacation - but are not used to pulling up to a dock. We, on the other hand have done virtually no anchoring, but Bob handles docking like pulling into the garage. We spent a few hours exchanging stories over a drink.

We also met another couple on an Endeavour motor cat (Toby and Dana) who have had a lot of experience cruising in the Bahamas, mostly in the Exumas. They pulled out their charts and guides, shared their knowledge with us – I took a page full of notes – we hope to see them there in the future.

We left our new friends behind in Brockport and motored on to Fairport, which looked good based on the description in the Skipper Bob book.

Picture caption: mast going under bridges

Picture caption: sheila with glove and boat hook ready to go through a lock.

We tied up next to the lift bridge, which is in the Guinness book of world records because all four corners of the bridge are at different heights above the water. We got here before it started to rain – walked around to find that most of the shops are closed on Mondays, had delicious ice cream and made dinner on the boat. I joined my book club by facetime to discuss “Our Souls at Night”.

We got up Tuesday morning ready to depart and discovered that the Vacuflush toilet had started acting up again (wouldn’t stop pumping). Last week the pump motor was tripping the breaker. We had picked up a spare motor and bellows at West Marine in Buffalo in anticipation of this, and clearly the time to install it had arrived. We decided to spend the morning replacing the toilet parts and doing laundry – unfortunately the laundromat closed last month – dirty clothes will have to wait. So I took the time to update the blog.

Note that Bob has now added to the technical page.